The Bronze Legacy

Tis a noble gift to be brown, all brown,
Like the strongest things that make up this earth,
Like the mountains grave and grand,
Even like the very land,
Even like the trunks of trees—
Even oaks, to be like these!
God builds His strength in bronze.

To be brown like thrush and lark!
Like the subtle wren so dark!
Nay, the king of beasts wears brown;
Eagles are of this same hue.
I thank God, then, I am brown.
Brown has mighty things to do.

Morning Light

(The Dew-drier)

It is a custom in some parts of Africa for travelers into the jungles to send before them in the early morning little African boys called “Dew-driers” to brush with their bodies the dew from the high grasses—and be, perchance, the first to meet the leopard’s or hyena’s challenge—and so open the road. “Human Brooms,” Dan Crawford calls them.

Brother to the firefly—
For as the firefly lights the night
So lights he the morning—
Bathed in the dank dews as he goes forth
Through heavy menace and mysteryOf half-waking tropic dawns
Behold a little black boy, a naked black boy,
Sweeping aside with his slight frameNight’s pregnant tears,
And making a morning path to the light
For the tropic traveler!

Bathed in the blood of battle
Treading toward a new morning,
May not his race—its body long bared to the world’s disdain,
Its face schooled to smile for a light to come—
May not his race, even as the dew-boy leads,
Bear onward the world toward a new day-dawn
When tolerance, forgiveness,
Such as reigned in the heart of One
Whose heart was gold,
Shall shape the earth for that fresh dawning
After the dews of blood?

The Quilt

I have the greatest fun at night,
When casement windows are all bright.
I make believe each one's a square
Of some great quilt up in the air.The blocks of gold have black between
Wherever only night is seen.
It surely makes a mammoth quilt —
With bits of dark and checks of gilt —To cover up the tired day
In such a cozy sort of way.